Easter and the Hope of Victory (Paulo Evaristo, Cardinal Arns, Archbishop of São Paulo: 1981)

[struggle4progress]

... Easter is for Christians the day of Hope of Victory from the Resurrection of Jesus Christ ... The decisive question is how we ought today to celebrate this Easter ...

Easter is hope for the poor, the afflicted and the hungry. It is hope for all those who live dominated and enslaved by a system of death which manifests itself in all levels of social organization ... Christians cannot be islands of peace, of hope and of victory in the midst of the misery of the rest of mankind. In order not to lose credibility and to be actual witnesses of the Resurrection, they must unite with all who struggle for a more just and fraternal world ...

We cannot celebrate Easter without seeing how people suffer directly. Inflation and unemployment weigh upon families who live within strict necessity. They see themselves obligated to sacrifice their own health and that of their children because they can no longer buy daily necessities. Easter signifies the vehement appeal to those responsible for production and commerce: that the factory and the great firms charged with distribution do not refuse to carry their part of the burden in this crisis. The celebration of Easter becomes an appeal to honor before the reality of history, an exigency of a new economic model. One perceives the necessity of a more just redistribution of national income, diminishing the excessive concentration of wealth and pressing the State and emergent powers to develop a social politics that concretely benefits the popular classes ...

Easter aims to awaken the conscience of the people to its creativity and collective action. This implies the right and the possibility of popular classes to defend their interests, reinforcing social movements, free unions of workers and favoring principally direct participation in decisions relating to the conditions of work and of a just social remuneration. Also, small projects for the purchase and distribution of indispensable consumer goods need to be remembered and propagated. The fact of union among ouselves awakens forces and new hopes ...

[struggle4progress]

1. Projeto Brasil: Nunca Mais

http://www.dhnet.org.br/dados/projetos/dh/br/tnmais/index.html

[struggle4progress]

2. Torture in Brazil

A Shocking Report on the Pervasive Use of Torture by Brazilian Military Governments, 1964-1979
Secretly Prepared by the Archdiocese of São Paulo
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/cattop.html